Seen on Y!IM

[cjsmith]

Random snippets from CJ's mind this morning.

On emigration:
me: I've lived overseas, and I don't mean someplace that speaks English and watches American movies. It's not easy.

On the aging population, Social Security, and immigration:
my conversation partner: So yeah, I can imagine going from "trying to keep people out" to "trying to bring those ppl in"
me: As soon as we start realizing work is valuable.
my conversation partner: Damn, CJ, I had soda in my mouth.

On dating:
me: I would have trouble dating someone who automatically looked down upon [label], if [label] can be applied to me.

Comments

[yoak.livejournal.com]

It is one of the more tragic aspects of the rise of the welfare state in the U.S. that we feel the need to restrict immigration. You can't throw open the doors and at the same time be willing to support those who come and aren't productive. Eliminate such programs and there remains no rational basis for objection to mass immigration.

I'm aware that some object to skilled people immigrating and "taking away jobs," but this is just garden-variety stupidity, as against objecting to supporting immigrants, which is in my opinion a reasonable stance given the current state of government.

[cjsmith.livejournal.com]

I agree that that is a sad effect, and I also agree that it's smart to be cautious about whom you're going to support. I would rather we didn't feel the need to restrict immigration either. I like having neighbors that don't look like me. I like the idea of living in a welcoming place. I used to be proud of the quote on the Statue of Liberty, and I would like to be proud of it again.

[oddhack.livejournal.com]

If you automatically classify all discussion of balkanization, urbanization, traffic, culture, and so on as "irrational".

There are upsides and downsides to immigration and by many measures, quality of life suffers from adding people. The H1-B visa discussion is a different matter than whether or not to open the borders with Mexico and let millions of low-skill, non-English speakers move in next year.

[yoak.livejournal.com]

It would have been better to say that I'm aware of no rational basis. I didn't intend to dismiss all possible arguments out of hand, as much as to dismiss all of those that I've ever encountered.

Low-skill people, even in large numbers, are only harmful to those coerced into supporting them. This support may come in the form of publically-funded education, welfare or any other form of entitlement. If such people receive no support, any work they do adds value, rather than detracts, definitionally.

In what way do you feel quality of life suffers simply by adding people?

[oddhack.livejournal.com]

Increased density of people results in higher cost of living, a more unhealthy environment, more congestion, higher crime rates, longer commute times, more expensive housing, etc.

[yoak.livejournal.com]

Hmmm... our disagreement is probably too fundamental to discuss this practical application. You see more people doing productive work as causing a higher cost of living, whereas I see a greater abundance of production, and thus a lowering cost to labor, goods, etc. You see more expensive housing rather than seeing more people to build houses if they are in short supply. The list goes on and on. This economic and philosophic difference in our view of the value of other people is so much more fundamental than the issue of immigration in a free society that it makes the discussion of the latter difficult.

In my last reply, I had considered bringing up crime and rejected it. That's one potentially very valid objection. While we stipulated freedom from coercive support, policing the population is one cost that must be assumed, and if the cost of that is high relative to the value created by the incoming population, then it could actually be a societal negative.

I didn't bring it up because I think it incredibly unlikely that opening the door to "a million mexicans" would cause such a huge explosion of the cost of keeping criminals under control as to dwarf the huge boon coming from all the productive value that others members of such a group would create. I don't think it is simply naive of me to hold such a bare minimum of benevolence for people. (I'm not implying that you aren't benevolent, etc. I realize this was one cost among many for you and don't wish to imply that you think all Mexicans are criminals or anything like that. I just couldn't think of a way to phrase it that might not evoke that, so I thought I should explain. :-) )

But... even if it were so, that still wouldn't justify any sort of immigration control in a free nation. I realize that until this point we've only talked about the economic and social desirability of such a policy and that this is a new argument, but ultimately it is the most important one. Restricting who can move about, buy property, own businesses and do work based upon race, place of birth, etc., is just crazy. As I said in my initial reply to CJ, doing so now, while perhaps crazy, is substantially less crazy than letting the world in and taxing others for their support... but once you eliminate that situation, it would be the height of obscenity to threaten someone with violent behavior because they decided to move to L.A., buy a house, and get a job with a local computer company. This is true whether the person is from Florida or the Yukatan.

Ultimately, I'm a gentle soul, I suppose. People talk about passing laws and having policies and I'm unable to process it without a visceral image of what it consists of. It means that some guy Joe, born 200 miles south of where I live, will decide to move next door to me because he knows how to make excellent furniture with his hands, and thinks L.A. is a good market in which to sell it. Believing in immigration control means pointing a gun a Joe and threatening him if he should try. Perhaps we just grab him and send him back... until the third or fourth time he does it when we'll have to either shoot him, or at least lock him away and thus eliminate the threat, at the cost of stealing from him his humanity. Joe never hurt or threatened to hurt anyone. Because we're considering a free society, he isn't even at the risk of hurting someone indirectly and through no fault of his own through taxes levied for his benefit. He just wants to make something other people wanted and trade with them. What possible justification is there for attempting to violently stop Joe, even being willing to kill him if he refuses to be stopped? This is the form in which the question sits in my mind when I hear people talking about "longer commute times" as though there is some sort of natural right not to be incrementally slowed by Joe's car.

[oddhack.livejournal.com]

You're right, we're too far apart to have a useful discussion. I figured out long ago from Usenet that there's often too high a conceptual or terminology or ideology barrier between people to allow it, and stopped having such arguments because they're pointlessly stressful.

More to the point, this isn't our space to rant in, and I doubt the owner would appreciate it.

[yoak.livejournal.com]

Fair nuff. :-)

If you'd like to talk about the more basic issues and perhaps circle around to this again, I'd be happy to do so, but as you point out this is perhaps not the best place. If you'd like, you can drop me a line at jeff@yoak.com .

[cjsmith.livejournal.com]

No need to stop (or move the discussion) on my account! I like well-thought-out discussion when I see it. If it's here I get to see it.

[cjsmith.livejournal.com]

Hey wait, I'm enjoying this! No need to stop on my account. :)

[oddhack.livejournal.com]

Well... all I'm gonna say is that it looks like Jeff is coming for an anarcho- or perhaps minimalist-libertarian perspective. If we actually lived in a totally unregulated economy and environment then such arguments would carry more weight. But the fact is we don't and won't anytime soon, so they are too abstract to convince me.

Also, saying someone is "crazy" if they don't accept your ideological premises doesn't strengthen the argument. Kinda the same problem some "blue-state/red-state" partisans have with each other, they won't even acknowledge their opponents' sanity much less their arguments.

As a purely pragmatic matter, if we dropped all the border controls and let every one of the hundreds of millions of people in the world who want to move here do so, I would be trying really hard to meet the immigration requirements in New Zealand or Australia or Canada - not for political reasons, but for breathing room and a culture I could live somewhat comfortably in, because that culture wouldn't exist here any more.